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Undocumented and illegal immigrants should have a roadmap to US citizenship
Results so far:
| Agree | 52% | 1219 votes | Total: 2329 votes | |
| Disagree | 48% | 1110 votes |
Agree
by Ian Black Trippen
Created on: June 08, 2007
To say that allowing illegal immigrants citizenship is a bad idea is to say that either they don't deserve citizenship or that we can't afford to give it to them. From a historical standpoint, neither is the case.
Historically speaking, most groups to immigrate to the modern United States from Europe, Asia, Africa, or Latin America (once there was a Latin America) have found upon arrival that they were worked harder than anyone else, but were eventually granted citizenship.
Take for example the Slavs, Italians, and Poles who came at the beginning of the 20th century. People were afraid that these newcomers would be too different from the native-born Americans to integrate. Native-born Americans looked down on them and feared being drowned in the flood. That didn't happen, and now in most parts of the country people of German, Russian, and English decent are considered not just equal, but the same. White is white now.
Looking again at history, the group who had to work the hardest to live here was the English. The first settlements in Virginia and New England nearly starved to death every winter. The settlement at Roanoke did starve to death. Things were particularly bad at Jamestown, Virginia, where newcomers were worked so hard that about half of them died of disease, starvation, or overwork within their first year of arrival. From 1619 to 1622, after the settlement had already existed for several decades, 80% of Jamestown's population, most of whom were newly arrived, died.
Granted that no one wants to go through quite so much pain as the first English settlers dealt with, what the Mexican and other Latin American immigrants are asking for right now is to be treated exactly as other groups have been treated. They are willing to do the work, but they want to be accepted into the society. If we are going to treat them differently from other groups, then we need to have a good reason for it.
We don't have a good reason why we shouldn't accept Latino immigrants into the U.S., and the only reason why we haven't is that a wartime labor system has been hijacked and maintained outside the boundary of the law. The federal government began cracking down on immigration from Mexico in the 1930's during the Great Depression and didn't let up until our entry into WWII made it necessary to replace the agricultural workers who were going to war. The Bracero Program arranged for temporary workers to come up from Mexico to take now-vacant farm labor jobs. Things went well during the war and immediately thereafter when fewer farm workers came home and many of them decided they didn't want to work on farms anymore, but eventually the fact that these immigrants were only supposed to work for a short time allowed the farm owners to pay them very little, barely enough to live on. Here are the roots of illegal Mexican immigration.
Newly arrived immigrants from Mexico are willing to do the jobs that most native-born citizens don't want to do and at a lower wage, but employers can pay an even lower wage than that if they have the option of getting rid of uppity workers by exporting them to Mexico. What started as a necessary wartime measure has become a self-perpetuating system where workers are brought in from south of the border, worked hard, and then either forced to hide somewhere, or sent back. The illegal status only serves to allow an even lower wage is paid to workers, and thus doesn't have a valid reason for existence. Think of the people who broke the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 1790s, they were patriots for refusing to give up their freedom of speech.
Completely ignoring the fact that it is fair to treat Latino immigrants just like we treated all our other groups of immigrants, to refuse citizenship to these people just because they broke a defective law is not the way to continue to attract immigrants. If we continue to call immigrants "illegals" because we don't understand our own labor system, then eventually people from poor countries will start going somewhere else and we, native-born Americans, will have to take on the dirty jobs. I don't want that, and I don't know anyone who does.
The principle here is that the immigrants shouldn't be undocumented or illegal in the first place. The United States has a history of importing people to do the dirty work, then letting them stay as citizens so they can help us import the next group of workers. Typically, we've done this to every groups who has come whether we thought they were inferior to us (the Irish and Italians) freeloaders (the Eastern Europeans) or so genetically different that they would be impossible to absorb (the Chinese, the Texans, and the Africans after a long and drawn-out struggle). We need to do the same with the Latin American immigrants because it's how this nation was built and it's the way to keep our economy running.
Learn more about this author, Ian Black Trippen.
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Disagree
by Michel R. Baylor
Created on: November 10, 2007 Last Updated: June 08, 2009
Undocumented and Illegal Immigrants do have a Road Map to U.S. Citizenship, they just don't choose to follow it. The road is narrow, it is a difficult and a tedious one to travel. In their urgency, undocumented and illegal immigrants take back roads risking their life and liberty in the pursuit of financial gain.
There is no other country in the world that would allow such an atrocity. Thousands of people have come to find work and the result is often at the expense of other people who are poor. There are several instances in history in which one culture comes and pushed out another. Fierce competition for jobs, goods, benefits, and services is common place.
Other minority peoples in border states, especially blacks, are often attacked by the larger number of undocumented and illegal immigrants asserting their power and forcing their way and their will. Some claim neighborhoods insisting that blacks stay out. They pulled up in an SUV with dark, tented windows. They brandished a large hand gun. They warned a little black boy to stay out of our neighborhood. This twelve year old youngster is known in the community. He is a playful child, always trying to have fun. He was simply on his way home from school and took a wrong turn. Many undocumented/illegal immigrants are affiliated with some of the most notorious gangs.
According to a recent Los Angeles Times article, At an alarming rate, Latino gangs are killing off an already weak black culture. The gangs (many illegal immigrants) are infiltrating poor communities and taking them over. The controlling drug cartels continue to filter crack cocaine, methamphetamines, heroin, and other deadly drugs into underserved crowded American communities that are accommodating large numbers of undocumented and illegal immigrants.
The connection here is inequality, disenfranchisement, social dissention, and racism. Since there are a large number of undocumented and illegal immigrants (Spanish speaking) moving into poor communities, typically black, other minorities (Russians, Asians, Jews, Armenians) are affected negatively, pushed out and discriminated against by the new face of their communities. Racial tension, gang violence, drug sales and distribution are all part and parcel to illegal immigration. Many smaller minorities, feel the effects, converse in private gatherings and meetings, and share their concerns for changing communities that no longer cater to them.
Undocumented workers themselves are victimized by the consequences of their choice to immigrate illegally. They are too often overworked, abused, and exploited. Many companies pay wages below minimum wage and cheat their workers. Another concern for undocumented and illegal immigrants is healthcare. These workers work in unhealthy environments, too hot or too cold, and are sometimes even treated like slaves. Undocumented workers often have to live in the shadows for fear of deportation or reprisal if reporting crime. In fear, most do not use city, state, and government services that could assist them in the process of securing proper documentation and immigrating through legally prescribed processes. Families and children are unduly subjected to hard times. Those hard times rub off onto the lives of others associated with this issue.
If every undocumented worker and illegal immigrant would adhere to the current immigration laws on the books, though lethargic and confusing, there would be no need for a new road map. Surely there would be a need for reorganization. Until then, all migrants have to do is continue to follow the current pathway to becoming a legal citizen, respecting American sovereignty.
Debating another road map is challenging emotions, causing social and political unrest, finger-pointing blame, and overwhelming cities and states exhausted and confused as to if there is really a need for another road map, or a need for law and order, respect of authority, and allegiance to the American way.
America's legal immigration system, though backed up and in need of serious reinvention, is an easy, step-by-step process (with a lot of paperwork) that allows thousands of people to immigrate to America, legally. However bureaucratic, here is how this simple process really works:
Depending on where and when you choose to file your application, the period of time between sending in the completed application and the interview to become a U.S. Citizen can vary from five months to more than two years. The swearing in ceremony for receiving the naturalization certificate will then take place from 1 to 180 days after the interview, although in a few U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly known as the INS) district office, it can take another one or two years. The length of time for the entire process depends on the number of U.S. Citizenship applications the offices receive in each state.
Additionally, making a mistake on your application (or untruths) can cost you even more time. However, by using a unique do-it-yourself service, you will be assisted through the entire process helping you prevent costly mistakes to your application. (See Immigrationdirect.co m).
In addition to government assistance, there are several organizations to assist people in their quest to become American Citizens. It is all a matter of steadfastly following the rules, abiding by the laws of the land, and using the current road map available to become an American citizen.
With modern technological advances - information, goods, benefits, and services available at the touch of a finger, legal immigration is a much easier process. For more information, see
www.us-immigration.c om. This site offers products such as Do-It-Yourself Immigration Kits. The kit covers marriage and family matters, work and employment issues, temporary and specialty visas, and U.S. Citizenship forms, law books, and a catalogue of legal immigration kits.
For a new road map to be mapped out, debate, legislation, and popular vote must guide the way, lead by those patriots who truly have America's best interest at heart. Respecting America and reaching for the American dream means faithfully using the current road map that has welcomed generations of immigrants from all over the world since its inception.
Learn more about this author, Michel R. Baylor.
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